March 23, 2012

Mark C. Taylor on Andy Goldsworthy

We conclude our week-long feature on Refiguring the Spiritual: Beuys, Barney, Turrell and Goldsworthy, with an excerpt from Mark C. Taylor’s chapter on Andy Goldsworthy: Goldsworthy’s preoccupation with place is often misunderstood. Some critics summarily dismiss him as a druidic...

March 22, 2012

Mark C. Taylor on James Turrell and Roden Crater

“Roden Crater is the most ambitious work and might well turn out to be the most important artwork of our time. For pilgrims fortunate enough to journey into Turrell’s work, the world is, indeed, transformed.”—Mark C. Taylor In his chapter...

March 22, 2012

Michael Mann Responds to the Wall Street Journal's Review of "The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars"

“Our national dialogue about climate change remains broken. The Journal‘s decision to publish Ms. Jolis’s review has done nothing to repair it.”—Michael Mann Perhaps not surprisingly, the Wall Street Journal‘s review of The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars: Dispatches...

March 21, 2012

Happy Birthday to Slavoj Žižek

Today, March 21, is the birthday of perhaps the most talked-about figure in academia today, Slavoj Žižek. Žižek, born in Slovenia and now a senior researcher at the University of Ljubljana (among many other positions), is famous for his incisive...

March 21, 2012

Is Matthew Barney the Most Religious Artist Working Today? — Mark C. Taylor Explains

As he explains in Refiguring the Spiritual: Beuys, Barney, Turrell, Goldsworthy, Mark C. Taylor was initially skeptical of Matthew Barney. However, as he became more familiar with Barney’s work, his opinion changed. In the following excerpt he explains the religious...

March 21, 2012

Interview with Nicoli Nattrass, author of "The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back"

The following is an interview with Nicoli Nattrass, author of The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back Question: What is AIDS conspiracy theory? Nicoli Nattrass: The central AIDS conspiracy theory is that HIV was created in a laboratory (perhaps with the...

March 20, 2012

Mark C. Taylor on "Fat Chair" by Joseph Beuys

“It’s all about the fat.”—Mark C. Taylor on Fat Chair, by Joseph Beuys In Refiguring the Spiritual: Beuys, Barney, Turrell, Goldsworthy, Mark C. Taylor explores these four artists’, whose work, unlike that of Damien Hirst, Jeff Koons, or Takashi Murakami,...

March 19, 2012

New Book Tuesday: Animals, Cinema, and More

Animals and the Human Imagination: A Companion to Animal Studies Edited by Aaron Gross and Anne Vallely Critical Cinema Edited by Clive Myer Contextualising Jihadi Thought Edited by Jeevan Deol and Zaheer Kazmi Bollywood in the Age of New Media:...

March 16, 2012

University Press Roundup

Our semi-regular roundup of recent blog posts and features from other university presses: Just in time for March Madness, Princeton University Press provides an interview with Tim Chartier on how math can be used to predict the winners of “March...

March 16, 2012

Nicoli Nattrass on Pro-Science Advocacy and Challenging AIDS Denialists

We conclude our week-long feature on The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back, by Nicoli Nattrass with an excerpt from her conclusion in which she considers the challenges in confronting AIDS denialists particularly in the Internet Age: Will This Popular Enlightenment...

March 15, 2012

Nicoli Nattrass on the AIDS Conspiracy

In the opening to her book The AIDS Conspiracy: Science Fights Back, Nicoli Nattrass discusses how she became interested in AIDS conspiracy theories. The Conspiratorial Move Against HIV Science and Its Consequences Most people do not believe conspiracy theories about...

March 15, 2012

David K. Hurst on The New Ecology of Leadership

On his blog, David K. Hurst, author of The New Ecology of Leadership: Business Mastery in a Chaotic World(forthcoming from Columbia Business School Publishing) posted an excerpt from the introduction that identifies seven rewards for reading the book: 1. Reading...